


Devotees of Aphrodite

by SailorFish



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The Odyssey - Homer
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Pillow Talk, Polyamory, idek guys let's just pretend Athena isn't a virgin goddess okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21549577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorFish/pseuds/SailorFish
Summary: When Dawn appeared once more with her rose-red fingers, she found her niece Athena still abed. And no wonder: Odysseus had carved it large and sturdy, and Penelope had covered it in her finest linens.--A short talk in bed between wife and wandering husband.
Relationships: Odysseus/Penelope, Odysseus/Penelope/Athena
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Devotees of Aphrodite

When Dawn appeared once more with her rose-red fingers, she found her niece Athena still abed. And no wonder: Odysseus had carved it large and sturdy, and Penelope had covered it in her finest linens. What Athena brought to the bed was, more obliquely, her patronage as goddess of crafts and, more concretely, Odysseus.

At the moment, Odysseus was examining his wife carefully above the goddess’ sleeping form. There was something in his eyes that was not quite accusation.

“You’ve done this before,” he said jerkily. “With – her.”

Penelope did not answer immediately. Not until she had sat up straight – carefully enough not to disturb Athena – and could look back at her wandering husband with their eyes level. She did not attempt to pull a blanket up to hide her naked body. Penelope could not compete in looks with an everlasting goddess, not in her prime and certainly not approaching middle age. But she had no need to: her lovers were no devotees of Aphrodite. Her chin dipped once in agreement with Odysseus’ words.

Her husband had always been a many-minded man. Jealousy flitted over his face, with fury on its heels, then grief, wonder, (to Penelope’s amusement) desire, melancholy, and finally a kind of ruefulness at his own reaction. But Penelope could never help but press.

“I kept all mortals from our bed,” she pointed out. “Are one hundred and eight refusals not enough for you – must it have been one hundred nine?”

Of course, he answered her by not answering her. “For me, it was the first time.”

It _was?_ To be the lover of a man beloved by a goddess meant accepting certain things, and Penelope had long-ago accepted this. But Odysseus preferred to connive and cheat, not to lie baldly. Not unprompted. And he had admitted his acquiescences to her on the very first morning they’d spent together in twenty years: his two acquiescences to her one hundred and eight refusals. If he said it had been a different kind of love with his goddess until last night, then she would not doubt him.

“She came to me once, near the very end,” Odysseus said. “Disguised as you. But I… She was too alike and too not.”

He would no longer meet her eyes. He gazed instead at Athena’s lovely face. After twenty years apart, Penelope marveled that she still knew Odysseus so well. Her husband still found it easier to deceive when looking into a person’s eyes and to tell the truth without it.

“She came to me clad as you as well,” agreed Penelope. “Alike and not.”

She left the end of that statement unspoken. _And I accepted her_. Was there hurt in Odysseus’ face or was it just desire again? Penelope laughed silently at the answer to that; she brushed one of the goddess’ locks away from her face with her thick, sturdy hand. To no surprise, she noted that Athena’s gleaming eyes were now slitted open. There was a deep curiosity and hunger in them: the kind matched in strength only by the curiosity and hunger that humans had for the everlasting gods.

“And if you ask very politely,” said Penelope. “I think perhaps she will again.”

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to The Odyssey for the first time this year (read by Ian McKellen, it's gorgeous and I highly recommend it). I also read quite a few Odyssey/Troy/Greek myth retellings. So uh, decided to join everyone playing around in the sandbox :)


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